Killgore led his horse off again. "First time out, Kirk?"
"First time on a horse in months. I had a deal with a guy in New York City, but I never really had time to do it enough. My legs and ass are gonna be sore tomorrow, John." The bio-engineer laughed.
"Yeah, but it's a good kind of sore." Killgore laughed as well. He'd had a horse back in Binghamton, and he hoped that the family that kept it for him would let him out when the time came, so that Stormy would be able to feed himself… but then Stormy was a gelding, and therefore biologically irrelevant to the entire world except as a consumer of grass. Too bad, the physician thought. He'd been a fine riding horse.
Maclean stood in his stirrups, looking around. He could turn and look back at the Project buildings, but before him, and to left and right, little more than rolling prairie. Someday they'd have to burn down all the houses and farm buildings. They just cluttered the view.
"Look out, John," he said, seeing some danger forward and pointing at the holes.
"What is this?" Popov asked.
"Prairie dogs," Killgore said, letting his horse slow to a slow walk. "Wild rodents, they dig holes and make underground cities, called prairie-dog towns. If a horse steps into one, well, it's bad for the horse. But if they walk slow, they can avoid the holes."
"Rodents? Why don't you deal with them? Shoot them, poison them? If they can hurt a horse, then-"
"Dmitriy, they're part of Nature, okay? They belong here, even more than we do," Maclean explained.
"But a horse is-" Expensive, he thought, as the doctor cut him off.
"Not part of Nature, not really," Killgore went on. "I love 'em, too, but strictly speaking, they don't belong out here either."
"The hawks and other raptors will come back and control the prairie dogs," Maclean said. "No chicken farmers will be hurting them anymore. Man, I love watching them work."
"You bet. They're nature's own smart bomb," Killgore agreed. "That was the real sport of kings, training a hawk to hunt off your fist for you. I might do some of that myself in a few years. I always liked the gyrfalcon."
"The all-white one. Yeah, noble bird, that one," Maclean observed.
They think this area will be greatly changed in a few years, Popov thought. But what could make that happen?
"So, tell me," the Russian asked. "How will this all look in five years?"
"Much better," Killgore said. "Some buffalo will be back. We might even have to keep them away from our wheat."
"Herd 'em with the Hammers?" Maclean wondered.
"Or helicopters, maybe," the physician speculated. "We'll have a few of those to measure the populations. Mark Holtz is talking about going to Yellowstone and capturing a few, then trucking them down here to help jump-start the herd. You know Mark?" MacLean shook his head. "No, never met him."
"He's a big-picture thinker on the ecological side, but he's not into interfering with Nature. Just helping Her along some."
"What are we going to do about the dogs?" Kirk asked, meaning domestic pets suddenly released into nature, where they'd become feral, killers of game.
"We'll just have to see," Killgore said. "Most won't be big enough to hurt mature animals, and a lot will be neutered, so they won't breed. Maybe we'll have to shoot some. Ought not to be too hard."
"Some won't like that. You know the score-we're not supposed to do anything but watch. I don't buy that. If we've screwed up the ecosystem, we ought to be able to fix the parts we broke, some of them anyway."
"I agree. We'll have to vote on that, though. Hell, I want to hunt, and they're going to have to vote on that, too," Killgore announced with a distasteful grimace.
"No shit? What about Jim Bridger? Except for trapping beaver, what did he do that was so damned wrong?"
"Vegans, they're extremists, Kirk. Their way or the highway, y'know?"
"Oh, fuck 'em. Tell 'em we're not designed to be herbivores, for Christ's sake. That's just pure science." The prairie-dog town was a small one, they saw, as they passed the last of the dirt bull's eyed holes.
"And what will your neighbors think of all this?" Popov asked, with a lighthearted smile. What the hell were these people talking about?
"What neighbors?" Killgore asked.
What neighbors? And it wasn't that which bothered Popov. It was that the reply was rhetorical in nature. But then the doctor changed the subject. "Sure is a nice morning for a ride."
What neighbors? Popov thought again. They could see the roofs of farmhouses and buildings not ten kilometers away, well lit by the morning sun. What did they mean, what neighbors? They spoke of a radiant future with wild animals everywhere, but not of people. Did they plan to purchase all the nearby farms? Even Horizon Corporation didn't have that much money, did it? This was a settled, civilized area. The farms nearby were large prosperous ones owned by people of comfortable private means. Where would they go? Why would they leave? And yet again, the question leaped into Popov's mind. What is this all about?
CHAPTER 33
Chavez did his best not to stumble off the aircraft, somewhat amazed that the cabin crew looked so chipper. Well, they had practice, and maybe they'd adapted to jet lag better than he ever had. Like every other civilian he saw, he snacked his lips to deal with the sour taste and squinted his eyes and headed for the door with the eagerness of a man being released from a maximum security prison. Maybe traveling great distances by ship wasn't so bad after all.
"Major Chavez?" a voice asked in an Australian accent.
"Yeah?" Chavez managed to say, looking at the guy in civilian clothes.
"G'day, I'm Leftenant Colonel Frank Wilkerson, Australian Special Air Service." He held out his hand.
"Howdy." Chavez managed to grab the hand and shake it. "These are my men, Sergeants Johnston, Pierce, Tomlinson, and Special Agent Tim Noonan of the FBI, he's our technical support." More handshakes were exchanged all around. "Welcome to Australia, gentlemen. Follow me, if you please." The colonel waved for them to follow.
It took fifteen minutes to collect all the gear. That included a half dozen large mil-spec plastic containers that were loaded into a minibus. Ten minutes later, they were at the airport grounds and heading for Motorway 64 for the trip into Sydney.
"So, how was the flight?" Colonel Wilkerson asked, turning in his front seat to look at them.
"Long," Chavez said, looking around. The sun was rising - it was just short of 6:00 A.M. - while the arriving rainbow troopers were all wondering if it was actually supposed to be setting according to their body clocks. They all hoped a shower and some coffee would help.
"Pig of a flight, all the way out from London," the colonel sympathized.
"That it is." Chavez agreed for his men.
"When do the games start?" Mike Pierce asked.
"Tomorrow," Wilkerson replied. "We've got most of the athletes settled into their quarters, and our security teams are fully manned and trained up. We expect no difficulties at all. The intelligence threat board is quite blank. The people we have watching the airport report nothing, and we have photos and descriptions of all known international terrorists. Not as many as there used to be, largely thanks to your group," the SAS colonel added, with a friendly, professional smile.
"Yeah, well, we try to do our part, Colonel," George Tomlinson observed, while rubbing his face.
"The chaps who attacked you directly, they' were IRA, as the media said?"
"Yeah," Chavez answered. "Splinter group. But they were well briefed. Somebody gave them primo intelligence information. They had their civilian targets identified by name and occupation-that included my wife and mother-in-law, and-"